Best Pope Since Pope John XXIII

I should start by saying I'm not Catholic. Not even a renegade or a recovering Catholic. Not born to the fold. But  I'm Catholic the way I was a New Yorker--an honorary New Yorker, a Catholic by association, Catholic not in spirit so much as affection, a sort of Jesuit-o-phile.

Spent almost 30 years on the faculty of Georgetown University Medical School, a Jesuit institution. The Jesuits are so low key about their Catholicism they have one photo of the Pope in the front hall, near the elevators but crosses in the rooms are so discrete, you never notice them, really have to look for them.

Over all those years, there were only two times the Catholic thing came up at Georgetown.

One time I sent a man to the lab at Georgetown for a semen sample. He was trying to get his wife pregnant and after two years, no luck and part of the evaluation is to examine the semen for a sperm count to be sure the problem is not with the male.  I got  a call from an embarrassed lab director on the phone. 
"Uh, doctor, you sent a patient for a semen sample."
"Yes, infertility work up."
"Well, there's a problem with that."
"Oh?"
"We don't do semen samples at Georgetown."
"Why not?"
"Well, in order to provide a semen sample, the patient has to masturbate."
"Yes, I'm aware of how semen samples are obtained."
"Well, the thing is, masturbation is a carnal sin. Touching in impure fashion."
"But, the thing is, I'm trying to help this guy make more little Catholics."
"Sorry, doctor. There are rules."

So that was that. The other time was a little more dire. A patient of mine delivered twins at Georgetown. One was anencephalic. No brain. No head, really above the eyes. The question was whether to provide life support for the baby or just let it die, as it surely would eventually.  The medical ethics committee visited, mostly priests, but some doctors and some professors. They agreed no respirators, intravenous or feeding tubes. They did want to the mother to see the baby. Not for theological reasons--just so she would never have regrets later. 

I'm still not sure making people who are not medical look at deformed fetuses or, for that matter images which look real but are essentially deceptive on fetal ultrasounds is a good idea.

But all this is a digression. We were talking about this Pope.
This Pope condemns abortion, and he is not for same sex marriage and he is a Catholic, which one would expect from a Pope.

But he seems to be willing to listen, to tolerate opposing points of view.  He's less into bombast and warnings of eternal damnation than sympathy and concern for the underdog. He rides around in a Fiat, for Christ's sake. He understands the value of symbolic acts.   And he's willing to fight what must be very entrenched people in the ultimate bureaucracy.  

He also is not afraid of seeing today's truths:  climate change, man's likely role in it, the moral depravity of mega wealth when there are so many impoverished.   He mentioned the pedophile priest problem, which is the first step toward solving it. 

One wonders whether he'll call a Vatican III, which might, like Vatican II could change things.  Allowing priests to marry, which, as I understand it is custom not doctrine. The one thing which would ultimately solve the pedophile priest problem long term, would be allowing married priests. You don't need three years of psychiatric training to understand the population of men willing to be celibate, to not consort with womankind is a select group, and it's apparent that group is going to contain men who harbor sexual pathology. 

It should be noted that in the early centuries, the Church allowed abortion. I'm not saying Vatican III would go back to that, but if the Church wants to move forward, it has to change. 

This Pope clearly knows that. 

My big problem with the Pope is he is a pope. The hubris involved in any human being claiming to know the mind of God, claiming to speak for God, claiming superiority over other human beings in knowing what God wants is simply beyond my ken. If you are concerned about offending God, one would think a really reliable way to do that would be to presume to speak for Him.

But that's just me. What do I know? 

Or, as Pope Francis might say: Who am I to judge?